Peas and Queues

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Dear Auntie—I’m worried about ecological collapse. What should I do?
Love Pete.

Dear Pete –

I’m worried too. You can’t survive ecological collapse. I know when you saw The Road you thought it might be okay because even though most things were dead Viggo and that kid were alive and you thought you might be that lucky too. But it’s actually pretty unlikely.

But don’t despair yet, there’s still time to become an eco-warrior (rather than an eco-worrier)—here’s a few starting points.
Investigate re-useable toilet wipes. You’re like, gross, I know, but have you ever thought about how weird it is that we wipe our arses with paper? If you had shit on your hands, would you use paper or water to get it off? Re-useable toilet wipe supporters reckon it’s not that much hassle and you’ll save, like, millions of trees. Google ‘Wallypop wipes’.

Make like Ludacris and save on water. He told treehugger.com a wee while ago: “Help conserve a lot of water by taking a group shower—y’know—shower with a friend.”

Just when you thought sex couldn’t get any sexier, they invented vegan condoms. They offer a green alternative to the non-biodegradable rubber and nasty chemicals of their slippery forerunners, and are not made using any animal by-products.

Read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals. I’ve never met anyone who could get through the first half without either becoming a vegetarian or throwing the book away and turning to a plate of bacon in despair. Research it for yourself, but here’s a cheery fact to get you started: Livestock production accounts for 18 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than all the world’s cars combined. (enveg.org)

You can pretty much save the world just by saying no to bottled water. Invest in one of those re-useable water bottles and make use of all the free, perfectly tasty tap water we have in Wellington. Did you know that 17 million barrels of oil are used every year to make water bottles? Just say no.
Hope that helps, but if I were you, I would be getting my Armageddon kit together too—don’t forget the spare torch batteries.

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